Subject: Re: Not the originals, although we did have a PS1
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Posted on: 2014-01-21 15:40:00 UTC
The GBA spin-offs were pretty decent; at least, Spyro Orange and Attack of the Rhynocs were. Didn't play much of Season of Ice or Season of Fire (Flame?) before tiring of them, so I can't give much of an opinion.
Man, Pokemon was my jam as a kid! I remember when Gold came out, I played that game for the longest! Until the internal battery died in it, RIP...
As in, the first games for the PS1? I'm just looking for people to geek out about it with. I get so nostalgic!
(I apologize if this is the wrong place to discuss this, still familiarizing myself with things...)
I've never actually played a Crash game, but I did play one of the PS1 Spyro games. I don't remember which one. Might have been the first one.
I didn't have a PS1 at the time, so I had a limited time to run around in the game, but I do remember enjoying the game.
The friend that lent them to me and I had a bit of a falling out and I still have a small pile of his games. I just might pop that into my PS2 again... now, if I can track down my PS1 memory cards.
I have played some of the other Spyro games though, I think they were for the GBC and GBA, not 100% sure though, it was more my sisters kind of game. I was more into Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh, which had one hell of a confusing game on the PS1 if I remember correctly, can't remember what is was called but it was really hard to work out the controls and everything.
The GBA spin-offs were pretty decent; at least, Spyro Orange and Attack of the Rhynocs were. Didn't play much of Season of Ice or Season of Fire (Flame?) before tiring of them, so I can't give much of an opinion.
Man, Pokemon was my jam as a kid! I remember when Gold came out, I played that game for the longest! Until the internal battery died in it, RIP...
Or at least you could from R/S/E onwards (although none of my Gen 4 games have had that problem yet).
Currently been re-playing through Heart Gold (remake of Gold) whilst I was waiting for my laptop, currently just got into the Kanto Region with my team of Feraligatr, Onix, Kadabra, Arcanine, Fearow and Dragonair.
I have every Crash game ever made and I love pretty much all of them. I do find Spyro the cuter protagonist, though. Maybe it's because I had a plushie version of him in my youth that I definitely do not cuddle now when sad and/or drunk why would you even think that?
I think perhaps little-kid-me had a crush on him.
What do you think of the newer games, and Spyro's few reboots?
They were good games but, changing the story like that, they just weren't Spyro.
Out of interest, when you say the 'original games' do you mean the actual first ones that were released, or just the series in general from the Playstation era?
I started playing with Crash Bandicoot 2, although I did play a little of 1. I have vague memories of 1 being really difficult for some reason, like the save points being spaced really far apart or something...?
They were both very good series of games - I played more Crash just because I owned them, but my sister had the Spyro games so I played them a fair bit too. Another game that I remember from around the same time (I think) was Abe's Odyssey - did you ever play that?
Some of the later games weren't bad, though. Before the reboot, I mean. The second one was the only one I didn't own, so I can't say much about it.
Abe's Odyssey? I've never heard of it. Was it any good?
Well, if we're just talking the very first ones, then I didn't really play that much of the original Crash, but I'm pretty sure I finished the original Spyro. That was a very fun game, and I'm going to have go find out if it's one of the playstation classics that are available for download.
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee (as I've now discovered is the 'correct' spelling for that title) was a 2D platformer with a fair bit of puzzle-solving involved in completing the levels. You took on the role of Abe, a humanoid alien creature, that was trying to escape from the factory he worked at after overhearing that his species was going to be next delicacy for the alien overlords that ran the place. On your way out you had to try and rescue as many of your fellows as you could, and you could interact with them in a basic way to solve the puzzles to help you escape (simple stuff like following you, waiting at a certain spot, pulling a level - or as a last resort distraction to prevent the guards from spotting you). It was good fun, but very challenging.
A mate of mine was very interested in all three of those games, so when you mentioned the first two, I was immediately reminded of Oddworld. I think Spyro was my favourite.
You are the second person today that I've seen, just today, who was being nostalgic for Crash Bandicoot. Well...I think the other person was being nostalgic. They were actually offering to buy it off of anyone who might have it, so I assume they wanted to play it.
Anyway, I've played many of the Crash and Spyro games. Crash is more my speed, though. I like the cartoony way he moves and spins. I also really love Cortex. He's an amazing villain. All in all, it is a wonderfully goofy game.
-Phobos
I'm pretty sure that all of the Playstation era Crash Bandicoot games are available for download on the Playstation Store, so if your friend (I'm assuming that it was a friend of yours, and not just some random person in the street that was trying to buy classic games off of you) has a PS3/4 they should be able to get it.
Mine's Warped, the third one. Toad Village is the level that I remember the most, and the one that makes me pretty much faint from nostalgia. Yeah, the first level of the game. I'll actually sit there and play that one level for hours, just remembering my childhood.
I think the only one I've got is Wrath of Cortex. It should be around here somewhere, but I can't find it. Maybe it is with my Gamecube games...?
-Phobos
The games do tend to blend together. I think Wraith of Cortex was the only one I didn't own. Did you play the first one? Man, that password saving/loading...
GameCube! Gawh, so much love for that thing! Perfect system, in my opinion. Ever play one of the Sonic games with the Chao Gardens?
I thought Sonic Adventure 2: Battle was okay. It was fun, but nothing to really write home about. Sonic Adventure DX, on the other hand, was a game I really didn't like at all. So damn glitchy in the bad way, and I HATED the Big the Cat stages.
Ironically, I actually don't think that Sonic Heroes was as bad as everyone else loves to make it seem. I thought it was actually pretty all right.
But I dunno, I think the Gamecube was best for JRPGs, which I used to play a LOT of. Skies of Arcadia and Tales of Symphonia FMFW!
I loved those little creatures. That was the only reason I continued playing the games, really. You're right about DX being super glitchy, which made it annoying to play. Adventure 2: Battle was decent. The Chao Gardens were the only thing that made the games stand out to me, though.
Sonic Heros, I found really fun. I don't know why everybody makes it out to suck. I used to go against my brothers and friends a lot.
RPGs weren't something I got into until I was a bit older, with RuneScape (which is dead now, too. Such fate for once-good games, pile-driven into complete crap by " cool new updates".) After that, it was The Elder Scrolls, with Morrowind and Oblivion (my favorite of all the games).
But yeah, the Gamecube and the GBA were the systems for that. Man, they had some great RPGs for those systems...
Ever play Summon Night: Swordcraft Story?
I did get around to some of the Department Heaven games, though. You ever play Riviera: The Promised Land?
Heard of it, though. I tried to emulate it years later, but could never find a working copy.
You can find a very good version these days if you have VisualBoyAdvance on hand. Very good emulation, if I say so myself.
Or you could hunt down the PSP remake they did, provided you have that.
What's the game about, exactly?
You basically play the role of Ein, who's a Grim Angel that's being sent down to destroy the world of Riviera for reasons that I don't remember. Once you get down there, though, you then end up getting swept up in events which hold the fate of Riviera there. So... yeah, basic JRPG premise and all that.
Oh, and lots of things in the world take after Norse mythology.
Most of my friends had PS1s, so every so often I would get the chance to play Crash Bandicoot and/or Spyro. Crash Bandicoot, from what little I played of it, was pretty awesome. I wasn't so much a fan of Spyro 'cause I could never figure out where to go.
But yeah, I've had some exposure to them. Makes me wonder if Crash Bandicoot is gonna get a reboot in the near future, 'cause Crash had one hell of an awesome character design.
But that wasn't as good as the original PS1 games. I think they actually kinda killed it, but not as badly as they did with Spyro. (I mean, the games are good, they're just not Spyro games at all. It seems like the company just wanted a popular character so people would buy the game, as they completely changed everything except for his name.) I would absolutely love to see reboots of the old, original games! I would want them to play the same way and, actually, I feel like the graphics were part of what made the game what it was as well... I mean the old, blocky PS1 style. I get so much feels just looking at it. I wouldn't be opposed to a graphics update if they did it right, however...
Changing the graphics and the way the game plays, I mean. The backstory too, I think.
This is the perfect place to discuss fandoms and other stuff we like. No worries there! {= )
The first three Spyro games are among the few video games I've actually played through to the end. I'm not a big gamer, but I love everything about the first one: the design, the music, the sounds, the way Spyro moves, the dragon names... everything. I don't like the second and third games quite as well, but they're okay. They're a little less magical and quirky, a little more wacky/goofy. Or something like that. I dunno; I just wasn't enchanted by the side characters and critters in the various worlds.
On a tangential note, another game I've played through is The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time for PC. Heard of it?
~Neshomeh
I've never heard of that game. What's it about? I'm always looking for new things to play, maybe I'll check it out!
The second Spyro, Ripto's Rage, is my favorite of the three. Probably at first because it was the only one out of my Collectors' Edition pack that didn't lock up, and later on because of the nostalgia. It's the first game I finished to the end (though, I'll admit, not 100% completed until recently) by myself, and one of the first games I fell in love with. Everything about it was just so... magical! The little dragon himself was adorable and pretty rad, the music was great, the gameplay was addictive and fun... I haven't seen too many recent games like it, and that makes me sad for future generations of gamers. And there was no DLC crap! You could just buy it and play it!
On another note, but still relevant- Any opinion on what the Spyro series has become?
Ripto's Rage is definitely better than Year of the Dragon, which I am hard-pressed to even remember. I think there was skateboarding in it, and that crossed my threshold for tolerating stupid mini-games. I wasn't playing Spyro because I was into skateboarding, I was playing Spyro because I wanted to run around as a cocky little purple dragon, fly, set stuff on fire, and trash things with my horns. Skateboards do not enter into this equation. Also, way too heavy on side-characters I didn't care about. See above note about wanting to play as a dragon, not a monkey or a bird or whatever else was in there.
Most of the mini-games in Ripto's Rage are pretty good, though. The flying ones are always great, and I was okay with most of the rest. The endgame always disappointed me, though. I thought the fight with Ripto was uninteresting, challenging only because it was a long grind and I sucked at dodging with the weird camera angle they used there, not because anything creative was happening, and I never felt a good sense of closure by defeating him. It always surprised me that it was really over, just like that. Plus, again, I never cared much about the side-characters. I wanted a lot more dragons from my dragon games, or at least more fantastical creatures like fauns, less random anthropomorphized animals like cheetahs with running shoes.
As for the rest of the series, I never played anything beyond Year of the Dragon because I couldn't afford new systems. Therefore, I don't know very much about the newer games. I guess there's a girl dragon, and she's named Cynder, or something like that? *shrug*
As for Legacy of Time, it's kind of similar to the Myst series in that it's a puzzle game where you run around picking up clues and items to work your way through each stage. In this case, you're a time-traveler who's trying to collect the pieces of an alien artifact that ended up stashed in various places and times on Earth, specifically Atlantis, El Dorado, and Shangri La before they were lost. You explore the areas, pick up various items that you'll need to use to solve the puzzles, and eventually you get the artifact piece from each area. You're assisted by Arthur, the AI in your chameleon suit (which lets you look like a native, wherever you are). Arthur is hilariously snarky, and one of the major reasons I liked the game so much. Also because it looks good and sounds good, and the puzzles are challenging without being impossible. The tunnels under Shangri La were definitely the toughest for me. I spent many, many hours running around mapping that place.
Oddly, I never played any of the other games in the series. I don't know why. Definitely check out that one at least, though. It's a little confusing, not having all the backstory, but once you're into the game it doesn't interfere too much.
~Neshomeh