darkSpyro

I bought a used GBA just so I could play this game when it first came out. A week later, I chucked said GBA straight into a wall after failing Aqua Speedway right at the end for the nth time.

Don not buy this game.

For the record, I was aiming to throw it at a couch pillow, but it slipped out of my hands at the last second (all that rage-sweat!) and smacked the wall about two inches above the cushion, smashing the LCD screen to bits.

I despised ETD and orange strongly enough to give up on the series back in the day, but neither of those games cost me an entire system.

For anyone who missed the game, but is still curious, do not under any circumstance give money for this game. Play it on an emulator. It does not deserve any better.

*DO NOT BUY*

Honestly, I still think this is the worst Spyro game, indeed I still think it's terrible

Although the sprite work is pretty good, aside from the prerendered character models.

Fusion/Orange (while it's not really good) gets too much hate imo, it's still worth some giggles and not nearly as poor to control. And ETD is legendary. I'll play both of those twice over each before playing SoI at all again because controlling this game is that awful. It makes it a pain from beginning to end and it's worse because you need 100% just to face the final boss. (A dumb decision in itself.)

Also, considering how much better SoF and AoTR are, there's no reason to play it. You can at least say Fusion/Orange is a more unique entry within the series, and obviously ETD is (and is much bigger).
SoI is superceded by its sequels the same way Shadow Legacy is superceded by ANB DS: SL and SoI both suck, though the games they're superceded by are actually kinda good, and really lost nothing honestly.

I mean if anything SL has a more unique place since, actually, ANB did lose the world exploration SL had (but it doesn't do a lot for SL, since a lot of that exploration was more meandery for lack of a better term). And SoI was superceded by TWO games, and even those two games are more distinct from one another than SoI is from either (there's a solid argument for SoF being better than AoTR, but AoTR also had those items to mess with and much different pacing).

SoI is just trash. I'm glad the developers learned from it, so I'm not trying to say it should never have existed (SoF and AoTR would be worse, otherwise), however you could wipe it from history barring that consequence and we would lose nothing of real value. The level design is all lame, the world themes are undeveloped, and... honestly, what else does this game offer? It feels frustrating but the stuff underneath that is just boring, one of the worst combinations imaginable. The worst thing art can be is boring, but make a game out of that and pair it with awful feel and hooo boy- you get something that's... like... it's like taking a ****, it's mundane, but you never want to do it and it stinks.

I'm currently playing the Japanese version, also known as Spyro Advance (Spyro Adubanchu) which has a map on SELECT and a checkpoint system with each and every fairy you rescue in EVERY level in the game. It's the best version of the game for me, because of all of those necessary changes.