Spyro The Dragon & Crash Bandicoot

[ABMorales787]

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How ridiculously good were the original trilogies of these two franchises on the Playstation? I feel they might be underrated. From 1996 to 2000 these came out a piece each year. Well worth buying a Playstation for these two franchises alone. Anyone play any of these fantastic 6 games? Memories of them? I've just replayed all of them.

1996 - Crash Bandicoot

This one set the bar. Probably too high as it had way too hard of a learning curve and had a platforming difficulty that made NES games blush. Not to mention that well into the days of Memory Cards, this bitch was a pain to save.

1997 - Crash Bandicoot 2: Wrath Of Cortex

Still tough, but this one nails the platforming and gameplay mechanics. It's repetitive with the levels, but it's far simpler and more enjoyable than the first. Plus it has Clancy Brown!

1998 - Crash Bandicoot: Warped

Where this franchise peaked. The gameplay was perfect. The platforming was both challenging but also simplistic. And hell, nothing sets you up better than hearing Clancy Brown talk about the production company. The Relics add a fun twist to perfect a level.

1998 - Spyro The Dragon

It was fun. Great exploration style platforming and that taste of unlinear gameplay that made it different to Crash. It's a 3D world instead of the linear levels of Crash and different goals too. Plus, Spyro is the Taco Bell Chihuahua.

1999 - Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage

But Spyro as Tom Kenny was far better. New support characters. Unique goals per level. Many fun mini-games and a more intricate story. My favorite of the franchise as it really expanded on what the first one had.

2000 - Spyro 3: Year Of The Dragon

This one expanded even more on 2. Probably a bit too much for my taste as stages had a good 6 challenges per level rather than the 2 to 4 of the last game. Not to mention too many gems. Even the post game level was freakin' huge. LOAD's of mini-games. Still a fantastic game, but in my opinion, it's a chore to go 100% on it unlike the previous 2. Not to mention a pretty nice, well told story. Torturing Moneybags doesn't get old.

These are fantastic gems. I'm not even sure if they're on the PSN. And I know they did keep making them and were certainly not bad. But this was the golden age of the 3D platformers.

 

[Richard Blonoff]

You know I never got big into Spyro, but Crash was my jam. For a long while it was Sony's answer to Mario, and it performed admirably. The spinoffs, such as Crash Team Racing were solid. I just wish we could have gotten Crash Golf or Crash Tennis. Those would have been fun.

Regardless of the sports spinoffs that we never got, I think the Crash series did a lot to put Naughty Dog on the map, and helped them give us classics like Uncharted and Last of Us.

 

[K Web V3]

Crash bandicoot was awesome. Played em all, n loved CTR. Spyro was fun too. Jerzey Devil was pretty fun too....psone launch type shit haha

 

[Stone Cold Tea]

I loved Crash Bandicoot as a kid. Funnily enough I had a look this morning for the original and the cheapest I found was £20!

I'd also like to throw Croc and Rayman out there as 2 other classic games. They don't make em like that anymore.

 

[Lee]

I loved Crash Bandicoot as a kid. Funnily enough I had a look this morning for the original and the cheapest I found was £20!

I'd also like to throw Croc and Rayman out there as 2 other classic games. They don't make em like that anymore.

They literally do. The last two Rayman games (Origins and Legends) are two of the finest platforming games ever made. So yeah they do make them like that, as in they're still making them.

Croc was shit.

Spyro we won't see again as his last reboot ended up starting Skylanders and he was very quickly forgotten.

Crash we may see we may not. Platformers are getting quite a resurgence due to indie games. They may take a gamble as they did with Sly Cooper. It depends who would do it. Naughty Dog have said Crash wouldn't be viable as a reboot and more than one game in any reboot I can see that it wouldn't be.