Spyro 2: Season of Flame

Spyro 2: Season of Flame
NTSC-UPAL File:Spyro 2 Season of Flame GBA PAL cover.jpg
Developer(s):	Digital Eclipse
Publisher(s):	Universal Interactive Studios
Director(s):	Michael Mika Sr.
Producer(s):	Trent Ward
Release date(s):	September 25, 2002 October 3, 2002
Genre(s):	Isometric platformer
Rating(s):	ESRB: - Everyone
Console(s):	Game Boy Advance
Composer(s):	Robert Baffy Ed Cosico
Mode(s):	Single player
Media:	Cartridge

Spyro 2: Season of Flame is a Spyro game released for the Game Boy Advance in 2002, and it is a direct sequel to Spyro: Season of Ice. It was developed by Digital Eclipse and published by Universal Interactive. The game's story is about the Rhynocs kidnapping the Dragon Realms' fireflies, which resulted in the dragons losing their ability to breathe fire. Spyro goes on a journey to rescue the fireflies.

Story

Spyro, Sparx, Hunter and Bianca return from their vacation in Dragon Shores after having helped the Fairy Realms. When they arrive, they are informed by an elder dragon that an army of Rhynocs, led by Ripto, have attacked the Dragon Realms once again and have stolen the fireflies. Without firefly magic, dragons can't breathe fire, replacing the fire for ice, thus making the realm colder. After retrieving all 100 fireflies around the Sunny Plains, Celestial Plains and Starry Plains (learning how to breathe lightning there) and other worlds with the help of Hunter and Bianca, helping Agent 9, Sheila and Moneybags and defeating Crush and Gulp, Spyro and Sparx finally arrive at Ripto's Volcano defeating him and return fire breath to all the dragons.

Realms

Dragon Realms
Sunny Plains				Country Farms Shamrock Isle Temple of Dune Tiki Tropics Minty Mines Canyon Hop Alpine Adobe Crush (boss level)
Celestial Plains				Candy Lane Haunted Hills Winter Mesa Watertopia Rumble Jungle Lunar Ledges Arctic Outback Gulp (boss level)
Starry Plains				Moon Fondue Gypsy Road Dreamy Castle Volcano Vaults Ripto's Mondo Volcano Ripto's Volcano

Dragon Draughts

“Ah, Spyro! I'm glad you're here. Would you like to play some Dragon Draughts? I'm tired of playing by myself.”

– Unknown

After beating the story, a new option is available to the player: Dragon Draughts. This game mode is essentially a game of Checkers with a dragon Elder. Spyro and Sparx will play against the Elder. Each of the Elder's pieces look like the Elder's head, while all of Spyro's look like his head. The opponent will mimic the player's moves for a couple of rounds, and will then make its own decisions. The game is over when either you, or the opponent, can't move any pieces, or when all of the pieces on one side are gone. When the game is over, you are offered a chance to play again. Choosing "no" will result in bringing the player back to the main menu.

Development

Digital Eclipse scoured the message boards for user feedback on Spyro: Season of Ice, and this resulted in a sizable list of changes and improvements to be added in Season of Flame. In addition, the development team had come up with their own improvements. Season of Flame was originally planned to be something more like an RPG, but time constraints (with a month less than they had for Season of Ice and the team having fewer programmers) gave Digital Eclipse no choice but to stick with a formula similar to Season of Ice.

Despite the imposing time constraints, the team was expected to reuse the isometric engine in the sequel. However, the engine was a complete mess, in that it was almost entirely hard-coded for Season of Ice. Reusing the engine was risky, since the original programmers who wrote it were no longer on the team. The current team made the hard decision to throw it all away, redesign it, and rewrite it from scratch, prompting them to work harder on the project. This turned out to be the correct decision, and despite months and months of long, hard hours of work, Digital Eclipse managed to finish Season of Flame on schedule.

Reception

Spyro 2: Season of Flame received generally favorable reviews from critics. Sam Steinberg of GameSpy praised the game's "challenging and varied gameplay" and "colorful graphics." Anise Hollingshead of GameZone, while criticizing the game's short length and the "sameness" of the minigames, said that it is "a great game for everyone in the family". Craig Harris of IGN and Frank Provo of GameSpot have declared that the game was superior to its predecessor in a number of areas.

Four-Eyed Dragon of GamePro cited the "tricky controls" as the only negative point of the game, saying that "the digital directional pad doesn’t allow for smooth diagonal movement, which Spyro does a lot in each world." Ben Kosmina of Nintendo World Report also found fault in the controls, stating that they have not improved from Spyro: Season of Ice and that it is "still incredibly awkward trying to control him while gliding, as he'll go zooming off all over the place with the slightest touch."

Game Informer, while concluding that exploring the worlds was enjoyable, said that "the jumping portions of the game are still a little iffy, and I killed myself quite a lot from misreading the view". Scott Alan Marriott of Allgame ("All Game Guide" at the time) cited that the graphics, humor and puzzles were "engaging enough to warrant a purchase for devotees of the purple dragon", but added that the game would benefit from better controls and more varied objectives. Nintendo Power noted that the game was presented in the same style and shown from the same isometric perspective as Spyro: Season of Ice. Martin Taylor of EuroGamer cited "boredom" as the game's major flaw, saying that nothing in the game "really makes you want to carry on the story through to its end because none of it is particularly fun."

See also

• Spyro 2: Season of Flame/Cheats

Gallery

For this subject's image gallery, see Spyro 2: Season of Flame/Gallery.

Trivia

• Unusually, the music for the credits in this game is the music for Haunted Hills in the Celestial Plains realm. In other Spyro games, the credits have their own music.
• The title of this game is opposite to that of Spyro: Season of Ice.

References

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