darkSpyro

Wow, it has been an ETERNITY since I last came to this section of the forum. But lately I've been getting back into spyro, and I have just about all the GBA spyro games now. and it got me thinking, what to you guys think of the handheld spyro games in the series?

I have yet to play spyro orange, but spyro 2 season of flame was my first spyro game ever. And I thought it was a blast. Season of ice was decent as well, and I'm currently working on attack of the rhynocs.

I've only played bits and pieces of shadow legacy, but from what I played, I enjoyed it for the most part. TEN and DotD for Nintendo DS were both really solid games, and I think I enjoy TEN on DS more than I did on Wii. And I'm also currently working on the gba versions of ANB and TEN.

I've never played any skylanders games, let alone a handheld one though.

Hi, welcome back!

The thing is about these games is that they're all unique. They have charms that separate themselves from the home console counterparts. I just wish that they were more SOLIDLY developed.

Loco you need to play more handheld games if you think the Spyro ports of them were unique. Actually,it took quite the time until handheld ports of a load of franchises got to be decent.
TEN GBA definately was the best handheld Spyro game I ever played, specially because it managed to handle the plot better than the console version and was a different genre entirely(metroidvania instead of beat-em-up plataformer). Shadow Legacy has a really silly and easy to run into game breaking glitch but I still play it every now and then to try to find a way around it. DOTD DS was just dumb and made the console version a good game compared to it.

Now, I'd really would want to see someone's opinion on the mobile LOS games. I played the TEN demo, and the sprites looked really sharp and well done for an oldschool cellphone game, but it only goes up until the first boss and ends before you can even have fun in it.

I've unfortunately never played any of the mobile games, though I hear some are pretty good.

Attack of the Rhynocs and Shadow Legacy are my favourite handhelds. My least favourite is either Season of Ice because I find it too hard or Fusion because it didn't turn out as good as I expected (it's just mostly minigames).

Definitely try the GBA version of The Eternal Night. Whether you love or hate TLoS, that game is really, really good.

Otherwise, Season of Ice is one of my faves, along with Shadow Legacy.

Quote: Bifrost

Now, I'd really would want to see someone's opinion on the mobile LOS games. I played the TEN demo, and the sprites looked really sharp and well done for an oldschool cellphone game, but it only goes up until the first boss and ends before you can even have fun in it.

They're not too bad actually, albeit a bit on the easy side. DotD lacks Sparx for whatever reason though.

Quote: RadSpyro

Definitely try the GBA version of The Eternal Night. Whether you love or hate TLoS, that game is really, really good.

Otherwise, Season of Ice is one of my faves, along with Shadow Legacy.

Quote: Bifrost

Now, I'd really would want to see someone's opinion on the mobile LOS games. I played the TEN demo, and the sprites looked really sharp and well done for an oldschool cellphone game, but it only goes up until the first boss and ends before you can even have fun in it.

They're not too bad actually, albeit a bit on the easy side. DotD lacks Sparx for whatever reason though.

yes

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Mobile versions of ANB and TEN are pretty mediocre. There's nothing too bad in them, but there's nothing that interesting and there isn't much variety (there are puzzles, but basically all of them consist of finding and hitting switches in mazes) so they get repetitive after a while. The flight stages break that up a little bit, but they really aren't great.

TEN is better than ANB since it adds a little more variety, including warp puzzles and more bosses, plus a neat boss rush mode. It also looks better and actually has background music, which make it more fun to go through.

I haven't actually played through a new file of them in a while, but I remember liking them when I was Spyro-obsessed, going back and playing some of the levels a while ago, and this was how I felt. I'm not going to bother re-playing them from the start, because the controls don't work well with the phone I use and they straight-up aren't good enough for me to want to go through them again.

IMO, as far as the handheld Spyro games go, it's something like this:

TEN GBA >>> SoF > DoTD DS > ANB DS > Adventure/AoTR >> SL > TEN DS >> Fusion/Orange: TCC > ANB GBA >>> SoI

I think the games I placed below ANB DS are mediocre at best. As for ANB DS itself... It's nice. The real standout are the boss battles, where you fly around the boss and fire shots at them and avoid their attacks and try to exploit their weaknesses. They don't last so long that they become grindy, but they're long enough that they aren't done with in two seconds. Most of the bosses also have different "phases", where after hammering at one part of them for a while they'll change and you need to attack them in a different spot. The main parts of the stages are fine, seem to control a little clunky for an inexplicable reason, but they have a decent difficulty and, aside from the last couple of levels, aren't too repetitive by the time you beat them. (IIRC, the levels have checkpoints anyway, so you can quit in the middle of them) There are also little light puzzles blocking your way through levels and they add a nice puzzle element to the game. Once you beat the game, you can also do extra light puzzles that unlock cheats (one of them lets you play as Cynder- well, with her character model, though no gameplay changes).

Not that DoTD DS is particularly great, but I think it's good. Has some frustrating stuff and a few poorly-designed parts (I hate how you can't replay a completed file, meaning there's no way to fully upgrade everything), but it's not bad, imo. And I think exploring the main stages was fun, plus the flight stages are cool (though kinda clunky) and lend it a decent variety. It also looks very pretty for a DS game. But maybe I'm just looking at it through rose-tinted glasses.

SoI is terrible. Mainly, because the controls feel too slippery. Spyro moves forward too fast and doesn't stop or turn fast enough- it's especially frustrating because the game is on an isometric perspective, which is kind of disorienting. But besides that, the game just doesn't have any interesting levels or mechanics, aside from maybe the flight stages (and those are too difficult to control). I have never beaten this game, because it's just frustrating to play. And I know it's a GBA game and it couldn't be the same as the console versions, but it feels like it's trying so hard to be similar and is watered down so hard, it hurts.
Thankfully, SoF made the controls feel better. Honestly, I think this game is good. Spyro turns faster, making it much more pleasant to play and it has more interesting and pretty levels, with better-placed collectables. It also added stages for Shiela, with her superjump, and 2D side-scrolling stages featuring Agent 9.

I haven't really played the others for years, so I can't say much about them, but I'm not really interested in them. I'm kind of curious to play through Adventure again, but I remember it forcing you to collect a bunch of particular stuff if you wanted to beat the last boss, which I hated.