On the subject of early 3D platformers, I think the original Spyro the Dragon has held up reasonably well. The controls are kinda fickle and the camera tended to be pretty garbo, but it's got some neat little mechanics and twists on the Super Mario 64 formula that help it stand out. Good artstyle/graphics and music, too, doesn't hurt.
That and Super Mario 64 are two of the only platformers of that era that I'm tempted to replay.
good to hear, haven't touched that game since then. I remember Ripto's Rage being my favorite
The first game is more simplistic but Spyro builds upon the multi-tier objectives system. There's a once through to the exit level way. There's getting all the gems. There's getting the egg thief. You can play entire levels accomplishing the bulk of the goals and not see half the map. Even like the second level has a straight path to the exit and you can be done in a minute or so, but there's a whole underground part to collect all the gems. Heck, the very first level requires you to glide "outside" the level from a high point to get all the gems. And even the hub world requires you to jump off the map.
I thought 3 went a bit far in adding in friends and skateboarding and crap.
Ripto's Rage might have been the sweet spot, as the first game really has no serious challenge aspect to it, just exploration. Plus 2 adds in where you come back with later acquired abilities.
I like them more than Mario 64 as I never liked many of the level designs in Mario 64 as much. Spyro has less that he can do but he always needs to do all of it and it's quite hard for him to accidentally misfire and die. Mario 64 contains too many parts that I imagine would not be in the game or altered if the game had not been tied so directly to the console, even with the delays it was already given. To use a completely different game, David Jaffe admitted they never truly playtested the part in
God of War where you're trying to climb the spinning wall of spikes. It brings the pacing of the game to a crashing halt. (Much like the box part with the archers early on.) Mario 64, in my memory, has too many components like that for me to place it in the pantheon as others do or did rather than it just being a very good game. Which is still praise but not for our best thing ever/worst garbage ever internet requirements.
I haven't played it in forever though. I watched some of dunkey's playthrough for some reason one day a few months ago, it reminded me of those parts I disliked more than what I enjoyed.
I've always wondered what Super Mario 64 2 would have been like, now that they had the teething of working in 3D out of the way. Especially after finishing Zelda too. It seems hard to believe that Sunshine was the only Mario game during that time rather than there being some kind of sequel that got scrapped. Now decades later I don't wonder if maybe it had something to do with the 64DD fiasco and would it have been related to a level creator. Mario Maker 64.
IIRC, Nintendo during that whole period and until Rare got sold previewed or named a lot of games that would just never appear again. Hell,
Kirby's Air Ride was the only playable game other than Mario 64 at the N64 Shoshinkai but didn't actually come out for another eight years on another platform.
Speaking of 3D transformers, I just looked up a playthrough of DK64 and man that looks like a steaming pile of garbage. Talk about not holding up well. I'm glad I got soured on DKC3 and skipped this one entirely. Then I was back for the sweet return to form with the Returns games.
DK64 was garbage at the time. That is the one "64" game I will fight people about. That and anyone who says Jet Force Gemini was great. (That was developed by the
Blast Corps team plus Diddy Kong Racing people rather than making a
Blast Corps 2 which would have put Sony out of business immediately and forever. And still could, if Nintendo cared to listen to the people.)
But it's also why we got the expansion pak. Rare couldn't fix a game breaking bug in DK64, but using the pak prevented it. So thanks for that weak ass coding that needed twice the system RAM, Rare.
